Strongbow Exploration surges on Nickel King study

A metallurgical study on the main zone of Strongbow Exploration‘s (SBW-V) Nickel King project in Canada’s Northwest Territories confirms a 78.4% recovery rate into 16.5% nickel concentrate.

Testing forecast that the grade of final concentrate will likely be 16.5% for nickel, 4.2% for copper and 0.74% for cobalt, with recoveries of 78.4%, 89.1% and 63.5% respectively.

The results sent Strongbow shares up 41.67% or 5 to 17 per share.

Nickel King is about 550 km southeast of Yellowknife and 145 km northeast of Stony Rapids, Saskatchewan. The property lies within Pre-Cambrian age rocks along the Snowbird Tectonic Zone, a crustal-scale structure marking the boundary between the Hearne and Rae domains of the Archean Churchill Province.

David Gale, Strongbow’s vice president exploration said in a statement that the results of the metallurgical study confirmed that the deposit’s main zone has “the potential to produce a saleable concentrate that would be attractive to domestic and foreign consumers.”

The study was undertaken on a 120-kg composite sample from the lower sill of the main zone, collected from 2008 drill hole NK08-36, and had an average total nickel content of 0.65%.

A series of tests determined that 88.9% of the contained nickel is associated with pentlandite, 9.1% is associated with pyrrhotite and the remaining 2% occurs within silicate minerals, primarily orthopyroxene.

Using a preliminary flow sheet that was developed based on optimum conditions defined from a series of six batch rougher flotation tests and four batch cleaner tests, a locked cycle test was performed using six, 2 kg
charges.

“Mineralization within the upper and lower sills of the main zone has shown excellent continuity over a strike length in excess of 2.5 km and remains open in both
directions along strike and also in the up dip and down dip directions,” Gale said.

A recently filed National Instrument 43-101 technical report said a metallurgical study was a critical next step in advancing the project.

According to a February 2009 resource estimate for the main zone deposit, at a 0.2% nickel cut-off base case, the compliant geological resource model yielded 11.1 million tonnes grading 0.40% nickel, 0.10% copper and 0.018% cobalt for total contained nickel of 97.7 million pounds, 23.5 million pounds of copper and 4.4 million pounds of cobalt in the indicated category.

The total inferred resource tallied 33.1 million tonnes grading 0.36% nickel, 0.09% copper and 0.017% cobalt for 262.4 million pounds of nickel, 63.9 million pounds of copper and 12.3 million pounds of cobalt.

Stronbowg has 66.1 million shares outstanding.